Pioneer Families of Cleveland, 1796-1840, Wickham, 1914, p.
68 -
Ninety years ago there was no family name in this locality
more
familiar than that of Dille, and no other family so numerically
numerous.
There were three separate branches of the Dille in the county,
headed by two
brothers and their nephew. David Dille, Jr., came in 1797 from
Washington
Co., Pa. to spy out the land. He was a farmer and was looking
for fertile
soil upon which to locate. He did not find what he wanted in or
near the
hamlet at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, and finally decided upon
a 100 acre lot
in Euclid. This decision would seem to have barred him and his
family from
this local history were it not that they sojourned six weeks in
twon while
their log cabin in Euclid was being built and that the children
and
grandchildren intermarried into Cleveland families, so that David's
descendants today - many of them of much local importance - are
distributed
over the length and breadth of the city. His brother Asa Dilley
settled in
East Cleveland on Mayfield Rd. and the nephew Sameul Dille Sr
on Broadway.
The Dille were of Huguenot descent. One of them emigrated
250 years ago
from Scotland to Jamaica, and from thence to South Carolina. One
of his
sons - who sent north into New Jersey spelled his name Dille.
Those
remaining spelled it Dilley, and it is claimed that people who
write their
name either way will be found, usually, to have descended from
the same
ancestor.
David Dille, Jr. was the son of David and Mary Wade Dilley
of Morris,
NJ. He was a soldier of the Revolution, having served a year as
Sergeant,
another year as lieutenant in the infantry, and two months with
the calvary.
Under his last enlistment he was with Col. William Crawford and
his
ill-fated expedition to northwest Ohio, terminating in the burning
of Col
Craford at the stake by the Indians in the presence of the renegade
Simon
Girty. At the age of 78, David Dille Jr. received at pension for
his
revolutionary services.
It was not until in the early spring of 1803 that he came
West to
remain permanently. He was then 50 years old, had been married
twice, and
was the father of eight children, the oldest of whom was 22 years
of age,
the youngest a babe. The family of Asa Dilley, his brother, accompanied
him
on his journey. The wives of the two men were sisters. They rode
all the way
from the Ohio River, near Wheeling, on horseback, each carrying
an infant in
her arms, with another child seated behind her, and holding on
to its mother
for dear life when the road was rough. It took 25 days for the
wagons that
contained their household effects to traverse the last 25 miles
of the
journey, because there was no road - nothing but a bridle path
- and tress
had to be chopped down occaionally to make this wide enough for
the teams to
get through.
David three sons Lewis, Luther, and Asa Dilley belonged to
Capt
Murray's company recruited in the War of 1812 in Cleveland. In
the Civil War
David had six grandsons and thirteen great grandsons.
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